1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a so-called image forming system, a server, a computer readable medium storing an image forming program and an image forming method and, more specifically, to a technique for lessening machine dependency of print data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a configuration for forming an image (typically, printing an image on paper medium) of a document or the like, generated by an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, by an image forming apparatus such as a printer, the information processing apparatus and the image forming apparatus are connected to each other through a network and print data is directly transmitted from the information processing apparatus to the image forming apparatus. In such a configuration, the information processing apparatus and the image forming apparatus are connected in one-to-one correspondence.
As another approach, a so-called client-server type configuration is also available. In the client-server configuration, print data transmitted from a plurality of information processing apparatuses are once collected to a server, generally referred to as a print server. The print data (or print jobs) collected by the print server are transmitted to the image forming apparatus in a prescribed order. In this configuration, a plurality of information processing apparatuses share one image forming apparatus, by the server.
Recently, a scheme referred to as “pull print” or “ubiquitous print” has been proposed, which is an improvement over the client-server configuration. In the pull print supporting configuration, a server collects print data generated by any of the information processing apparatuses, and any of the image forming apparatuses selectively obtains print data collected in the server and forms an image of obtained print data. As an example of such pull print supporting configuration, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-220354 discloses a network printing system that allows a user to directly and plainly specify an output destination printer. The network printing system includes one or a plurality of client terminals, a print server and one or a plurality of printers, connected by a network.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-112687 discloses a host apparatus in which types of data that can be output from a printer are stored, type of data to be output from the printer is recognized, whether the data of interest can be output from the printer or not is determined, and if output of the data is determined to be possible, a pull print instruction is issued so that the data to be output is directly passed to said printer to be output therefrom, whereas if output of data is determined to be impossible, data of the type that can be output is generated from the data of interest, and thereafter a print instruction is issued to have the data output from the printer.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-252300 discloses a pull print system including pull print means, means for registering print data on a WEB server, means for automatically preparing a plurality of print data of different formats at the time of registration, and means for preparing an information header in which the print data, URL information and object printer model information are organized, wherein the pull print means acquires optimal print data from print data of various formats and performs printing.
In such a pull print supporting configuration, it is possible to form an image of an arbitrary print data by an arbitrary image forming apparatus. Therefore, when an image forming apparatus is busy with processing, the process can easily be performed by another image forming apparatus.
Image forming apparatuses of late allow installation of various and many functions, and by such functions, various print settings may be made when the print data is generated by the information processing apparatus. The print setting designated on the side of information processing apparatus is added as setting information to the print data and transmitted to the server.
On the other hand, among the plurality of image forming apparatuses, there may be one not supporting most of the above-described functions. Therefore, when print data, prepared on the assumption that various and many functions are available, were processed by an image forming apparatus having limited functions only, the resulting output would be unsatisfactory. If the output destination of the print data is limited to only the image forming apparatus or apparatuses fully equipped with the necessary functions, the advantage of pull print type configuration that the print data can be processed by any of the image processing apparatuses cannot fully be enjoyed.
Further, when setting information is interpreted by the image forming apparatus receiving the print data, even one same piece of setting information may be interpreted as different printing methods by each of image forming apparatus of different types.